Undersized Urbanite 2014 - Planning

Still working on The Curious Concepts Project, but over the holidays I had a couple hours where I didn't have anything to do, and couldn't use my laptop. So as promised in my last update, I scrubbed down my somewhat grimy little house with dish soap.

And then after it dried I started planning out the exterior.

graph paper!

The house/store/cafe (I really need to pick soon) is bird house themed, so I want to keep all the doors and windows rounded with either nest material or perches mixed in, but it should still look like a dollhouse when it's done.

Figured out where the door is going-Progress!

A fun fact about this house: Some of the pieces are permanently glued together, while others are just held together with screws. At first I didn't like the screws, one more thing to cover up,...But then I realized that the annoying front section on the top floor, that was going to be a big pain to design/decorate around, comes off.

Wow, look at all that space. 

And you can see the bird house opening from the inside now.

The roof pieces come off too. 

This room will be so easy to decorate.

Not a ton of progress overall, but I've figured out enough to think about what I'm going to do, once I have time to do it all. That's something. :)

The Curious Concepts Project: WIP "Devon" and ..."Colors"

I was working on these two over the holidays, and now it's time to post my progress so far.

As you may remember, Devon's request was a picture of Neil.
So, of course, Neil's request: Devon.

Once again, I was told to grab a photo off of Facebook.
Not sure who took the original, so I'll start by posting it after I already started painting in Photoshop.

It's going to look goofy before it looks awesome. 

Always remember that when using Photoshop.

Flat Colors! 

Not sure about the orange background, but it works for now.

Starting to shade with the burn tool.

More shading, and painting in details.

It's getting there.

 

I also started an illustration using Vittoria's color choices:  

Navy Blue, Purple, and "Silver".

 Silver is in quotations because it's going to be more of a gray. Although printed on metallic photo paper, it might look silver-kinda hoping that works out because Vitt did request silver...

My plan for this one was to just start drawing and see what happened.

I ended up with a ship sailing into infinity.

neat.

As you can see, no actual coloring done on that one-yet. I think it's off to a good start though.

Cute Stuffed Animals For Christmas

Yeah, I just used the word, "Christmas", in the title of a January post.
(Happy New Year, btw).

I mentioned back a month or two ago that I had to cut back on blogging so that I had time for other projects, one of which was a Christmas present for my pint-sized niece. I thought some of you might like to see what I made;

Cute aren't they?

I was looking around the internet for some kind of toy that I could make as a gift, here is the blog where I got the patterns from; http://whatmadeleineloves.blogspot.com/2012/05/felt-project-animals-my-very-first-felt.html

I made some changes, of course. Instead of gluing down little pieces and googly eyes, aka choking hazards, I stitched and embroidered in all of the details. And instead of felt, because I don't have/rarely ever use felt, I used printed cotton fabric and treated each piece like it was a tiny pillow that I was making. In sewing, the blanket stitch is my best friend.

I have no idea how well these will hold up against a toddler and her two little dogs, but every other gift I've made so far was a decoration or something to grow into-It was time for some toys. Anyway, my niece seemed to like them, they got a collective hug as soon as she pulled them all out of the box, and she wouldn't let anyone have them until she was allowed to open another present. Her uncle (one of my brothers) somehow got her to give up the pig so he could get a closer look at how I made them. She realized that he had it and got a little upset (so he gave it back). In closing, I'd say Christmas went well.